136 – Nordic Forest
“Interesting.”
The man in the luxurious wooden chair muttered.
He is wearing a black fedora.
A gentleman holding a cane in one hand.
A hatter who runs a ruin shop.
His gaze was fixed on the screen in front of him.
Players who participated in this quest cannot use the perish shop.
So all he has to do is just watch.
That said, it was impossible not to be interested.
A large amount of coins will be released in this quest, so the top players will buy good items as if they have waited.
Now that the quest has progressed considerably, players can purchase high-end items relatively freely.
Since there is also the intervention of a contracted deity, it is a time when a lot of products are being sold.
Thanks to that, he made a decent amount of money, but his current interest was elsewhere.
“What are you looking at?”
Suddenly, someone came up behind him and hugged his head.
I felt a soft yet heavy mass through the hat.
I could easily imagine the appearance of the other person without even looking back.
Your blonde hair has grown to your waist, and you’re probably still wearing a bunny girl.
She’s a pretty bold outfit, but she’s a woman who feels more classy than erotic.
“Hey, assistant. Have you finished all the work?”
At those words, the March Rabbit openly frowned.
It was as if I was asking if you dared to give me such an order.
“Why am I your assistant! I’m just helping out for a while because I have nothing to do!”
“Then let’s just say he’s a subordinate.”
“Ah, that’s really unlucky. Yusei says he has a lot of money.”
Once the March Rabbit, who had lost his hotel, was right to work at the perishing store.
That doesn’t mean she’s intimidated in front of her hatter.
Even if their position or role is different, they are all equal.
“So what did player Jihoon Lee do this time?”
“……Why do you assume it is that man?”
“Because that’s about the number of people you have to keep an eye on. No?”
“Well, that’s right.”
The hatter shrugged lightly.
“In the end, it seems that saving the ‘dream of a dream-like night’ will be passed on casually. They signed a formal contract, and now they’re going on an urgent quest.”
“Well, isn’t it common for resurrection or the dead to come back to life?”
From a human point of view, it’s like a miracle from God.
However, it is not so from the point of view of ‘God’.
In any mythology, there are many cases where the dead are resurrected.
You can even find it in folk tales.
Didn’t Jihoon, who is right in front of you, use his past skills to die and then come back to life again and again?
Resurrection of the dead is not a very special event in destruction.
“Of course it might. But this time the case is different. This isn’t a resurrection, it’s making death itself a thing that never happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t die and come back to life. The ‘fact’ itself that had died in the first place was denied and eliminated. It means you twisted your fate.”
“Hmm.”
The hatter continued as he fixed his hat.
“As long as it’s a simple resurrection, it doesn’t matter. But change the fate that has already been decided to one’s own will? You defied the will of destruction right in front of your eyes.”
No god can resist the system of destruction.
This is the first law for the world to exist intact.
“It’s not a god, it’s just a player who broke it. Even alive and well. This is related to the balance of the world.”
“Well, it doesn’t really matter.”
Despite the Hatter’s sincere words, the March Hare only shrugged lightly.
“The deities who were watching were quite satisfied, and the players who participated also liked it, saying it was a sucking quest. No one has been harmed. I also like this kind of hopeful story, right?”
“Well, no one knows how this luck will turn out. Tragedy and comedy ultimately exist in total.”
He replied as if he had seen the future.
“Furthermore, looking at what happened this time, I am gradually weakening due to the penalty of destruction. I came to respect the individuality and role of the characters more than the balance of the world view. Would you say your degree of freedom has increased?”
The hatter smiled grimly as he said that.
“Isn’t it interesting? A character who has no choice but to live as the pen moves… Going beyond the pen and leading the story at will.”
Seeing that, the March Hare narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at him.
“Don’t think about doing anything weird. We are obviously the ones closest to the truth in this world…But that’s why we are forbidden to intervene.”
“I know.”
After saying that, the hatter returned his gaze to the screen.
This time, Jihoon is headed to the underworld.
‘Even so, it’s bad taste that the quest location is over there.’
If the opponent wasn’t Jihoon, I would have thought that he was just sent to die.
Do they really know?
The fact that it is no different from a world that has already been destroyed.
****
“Then I’ll be back! You can’t fight while I’m gone!”
Pippi!
At Eve’s greeting, the rabbits sent off with a powerful salute.
After a day’s rest, we headed straight to the gate that emerged for the quest.
Name: Whoever enters this place, give up all hope
Type: Urgent Quest
Difficulty: A
Content
-After going to the nether world through the dimensional portal, meet the ruler there and complete the task as a slave.
-The quest ends as soon as you complete the task suggested by the ruler.
A black gate that looks ominous just by looking at it.
That was also the entrance to the underworld.
“Hmmm, it’s a bit ominous after all.”
Eunbyeol muttered in a voice that he was embarrassed.
However, players do not have the right to refuse quests in the first place.
Fortunately, this isn’t a quest where you have to die.
And the fact that the colleagues who go together are reassuring.
‘I’m sure this combination will survive even the slightest threat.’
In addition to being a reincarnated person, Yuri boasts excellent swordsmanship.
With a fraudulent job as the best driver, Hye-na is the best among us in terms of mobility.
A silver star who made a contract with the angel Gabriel and even has a job as a saint.
In addition, Eve, the godhead.
Everyone is a woman with tremendous skills.
In addition, his personality and personality were so great that they were incomparable to me.
The combination itself is good, so if it’s a moderate quest, you’ll be able to complete it without any problems.
It’s new, but it’s a reliable team.
“What are you doing, aren’t you coming?”
“I just wanted to say I’m so glad I met you.”
Yuri narrowed her eyes for a moment at my words.
From noble mtl dot com
Then she smiled and slapped me on the arm.
“What a new thing. Good luck if you know.”
“Oh, yep. It is.”
We all crossed the black gate like that.
What unfolded before my eyes was a huge forest.
But the atmosphere was completely different from the place I was before.
It was dark in the woods where sunlight barely came in.
Overall, it even gave off an ominous feeling of black.
We were all used to this feeling by now.
It is the smell of death.
“What, what kind of forest are there?”
“Since it was said to be the underworld, it wouldn’t be strange to have an atmosphere like this.”
In fact, even if it was the Underworld, it was not known exactly what kind of place it was.
Depending on the mythology, the underworld can be a happy place or, conversely, a terrible hell.
Still, I had high hopes that it would be a good place.
In less than a second after I came in, that hope was shattered.
I had a feeling that this place would never be peaceful.
“Eve, have you ever been here before?”
I asked because I thought Eve, the godhead, might know something.
But she just shook her head.
“I have never been to a place like this before. In the first place, I wasn’t very active.”
“What, that was terrible.”
“Wouldn’t it be natural if you were a contracted goddess?”
“… ….”
I tried to make fun of it, but I got it back.
As expected, she is a goddess that can be easily seen.
He’s the type who says everything he has to say because he’s born innocent.
Seeing us like that, Hyena laughed and said.
“Let’s go forward for now. But there are people who live here too.”
“Aren’t there only dead people in the Underworld?”
“Oh, is that so? So are they all just ghosts?”
“I don’t know.”
Well, being reliable is cancelled.
There doesn’t seem to be a single useful human being here.
“The quest says there is someone to give us orders. I’ll have to find him first.”
“I hope I’m not a bad person.”
“If it’s a guy like that, just kill him and that’s it.”
Yuri spoke casually.
The content of the talk is bloody, but no one thought it scary anymore.
Although he knows that Yuri is a kind woman to her people.
She said it was because she was used to fighting and death.
Anyway, I can’t sit still.
We set the goal of getting out of the forest and walked forward.
As Eunbyul walked, she tapped the tree with her palm.
“By the way, when I said the underworld, I thought of the underworld or inferno. Surprisingly, there is something like a tree, right? Wouldn’t a person be able to live with this?”
“Hmm, as far as I know there is a world where the dead gather with this kind of atmosphere. But it won’t be there.”
“Why not?”
Eve answered my question in a succinct way.
“There has already been destroyed by Ragnarok, and the world has collapsed…”
Eve, who was talking, stopped her.
This is because Yuri, who was in the lead, suddenly pulled out her sword.
“Coming.”
As soon as he finished speaking, a burning fireball flew in front of his eyes.
Yuri immediately swung her sword and cut it off.
“Cheer up!”
A roar rang in the distance.
Looking closely, there was a skull blazing with flames.
A monster that boasts several times the size of a large human.
It’s clearly engulfed in flames and burns, but it doesn’t look painful at all.
The underworld, the flame giant, and Eve’s words earlier.
“……I think I know what this place is like.”
Without time to rejoice at having found the answer, the flame monster in front of me rushed at it.
The battle started within 10 minutes of entering.